The present invention relates to acoustic media for absorbing or reflecting sound, and in particular to acoustic media, preferably a high performance honeycomb acoustic media, which can be extended and retracted to enhance the acoustics of an environment xe2x80x9con demandxe2x80x9d.
Many rooms in homes, schools and offices are built and furnished with primarily flat, hard surfaces such as sheetrock walls, hardwood floors, and many windows. While the acoustical performance of such rooms can be acceptable for many uses, the acoustical performance of such rooms can be inadequate for many uses where acoustics are important in carrying out and/or enjoying an activity, such as when the rooms are to be used for lectures, home theaters, music rooms, etc. For example, in a school, it may be desirable, for reasons of overcrowding or other reasons, to use a room that is normally used as a conventional classroom as a music room for certain class periods of the day and as a classroom for the remaining class periods of the day. While the acoustics of the room may be acceptable for conducting classes, the acoustics could be totally inadequate for playing music. Thus, to enable the room to serve both functions, to serve as a classroom and as a music room, the ability to quickly and easily change and enhance the acoustics of the room to convert the room from a classroom to a music room and the ability to quickly and easily convert the room from a music room back into a conventional classroom would be quite desirable. While a classroom has been used as an example, the ability to quickly and easily change and enhance the acoustics of a room (temporarily acoustically treat the room) so that the room can better serve different uses applies to many home, school and office situations. Even in a room that is dedicated to a particular use, such as some music rooms and some home theaters, the ability to easily and quickly change and enhance the acoustical properties of the room (acoustically treat the room) to meet the acoustical requirements for a particular composition or movie would be quite desirable.
The acoustic media of the present invention can be used to absorb or reflect sound and can be used to easily and quickly change and enhance the acoustical performance of a room and to easily and quickly change the acoustic performance of the room back to its original state.
Preferably, the acoustic media of the present invention is a honeycomb acoustic media, having one or more series of collapsible elongated tubular sections with polygonal transverse cross sections, that is formed into a continuous curtain with pleated first and second major surfaces. Preferably, the collapsible elongated tubular sections have square, rectangular or hexagonal cross sections, most preferably hexagonal cross sections, and form the pleats that make up the major surfaces of the pleated curtain. (As used herein, the term hexagonal cross section, means a transverse cross section that has six sides and six angles. The six sides and six angles of the hexagonal cross section may be equal or differ as long as the elongated tubular sections having hexagonal transverse cross sections are collapsible.) Since the elongated tubular sections are collapsible, the pleated curtain can be retracted by collapsing the elongated tubular sections and extended by opening the elongated tubular sections. The mat materials forming the elongated tubular sections and the pleated major surfaces of the curtain provide the pleated curtain with an airflow resistance through the curtain, in a direction generally perpendicular to the planes containing the apexes of the pleats forming the first and second major surfaces of the curtain, that has the desired properties for absorbing or reflecting sound.
Preferably, the pleated curtain formed by the honeycomb acoustic media of the present invention includes a head rail and a bottom rail. The pleated curtain depends from the head rail and the bottom rail is secured to a bottom end of the pleated curtain. Lines or cords extend from and connect the bottom rail to a raising and lowering mechanism in the head rail for extending and retracting the curtain in a vertical direction.
Thus, with a pleated curtain formed from the honeycomb acoustic media of the present invention, the acoustical performance of a room (e.g. a room with acoustically rigid surfaces or a specific purpose room) can be enhanced or treated, on demand, merely by lowering the decorative, high performance acoustic media curtain of the present invention and the acoustical performance of the room can be returned to its original state, on demand, merely by raising the acoustic media curtain of the present invention. For example, prior to watching a surround sound movie, one or more sound absorbing and/or sound reflecting pleated acoustic media curtains of the present invention can be lowered by remote control from recesses in the ceiling to create a desired acoustical environment. In classrooms, one or more high performance, acoustic media curtains can be lowered from a ceiling during lectures for improved speech intelligibility and then retracted from high-traffic areas during recess. The high performance, acoustic media curtains can also be used in various multi-use auditoriums to change, enhance or tailor the auditoriums"" acoustical performance for specific or special uses or needs.
While the honeycomb acoustic media of the present invention is preferred, the acoustic media of the present invention may also include pleated curtains without a honeycomb structure and pleatless curtains, such as a series of curtains with various airflow resistances. While the acoustic media of the present invention is typically used as an extendable and retractable wall treatment located adjacent but spaced outwardly from a wall and intermediate an acoustical source and the wall, the acoustic media of the present invention may also be used as an extendable and retractable room divider and as an extendable and retractable ceiling treatment adjacent but spaced outwardly from a ceiling and intermediate an acoustical source and the ceiling. As used in the previous sentence the terms wall and ceiling refer to generally flat, acoustically rigid room surfaces, such as but not limited to, flat, hard sheetrock or wooden surfaces and/or window surfaces. In addition, while the acoustic curtains of the present invention made from the acoustic media of the present invention are shown and described as deploying or extending and retracting in generally vertical directions, the acoustic curtains of the present invention can also be deployed and retracted in a horizontal direction, e.g. a floor to ceiling acoustic curtain of the present invention can be extended or deployed in a horizontal direction along and adjacent a wall by pulling the curtain open and retracted by pulling the acoustic curtain closed.